Biography
"I've had friends who died, friends who went away
Others who broke their faces against time.
I hated what was easy.
I sought for myself in the light, the sea, the wind."
Sophia de Mello Breyner
A particular pathway for this Récitals de Textes cycle devoted to contemporary Portuguese authors, mainly poets. Multiples variations as years went by, from the first production at the Centre Dramatique National de Bordeaux in 1993, to the performances in Paris – Théâtre de la Vieille Grille, the Musée Maillol-Fondation Dina Vierny, the Espace Comedia – and in various other places in France... By the Tagus..., Just above the water dedicated to Sophia de Mello Breyner, a great figure of contemporary Portuguese poetry", Fragments of a Glance, By the Tagus 2... brought together six authors, three composers, two musicians, one singer, one opera singer, thirteen actors, along with the exceptional participation of Gisèle Casadesus, Lucien Pascal, Hugues Quester and sometimes Sophia de Mello Breyner and Nuno Judice.
Round tables, literary cafés, conferences were organised around those representations along with Portuguese literature specialists such as Pierre Léglise Costa, José Manuel Esteves, Robert Bréchon.
Poems and stories by Sophia de Mello Breyner in which the radiant influence of ancient myths, the marine vastness and the quest for what lies “beyond”, for the harmony of that moment in which everything falls in the right place, all echo each other. Yet in her poetic universe, there is still, as an underlying thread, the “imminence of danger”.
Short stories by Maria Judite de Carvalho revealing through her clear prose, with the irony, the humour and the poetic evidence, characteristic of her writing style, the labyrinth of buried desires, of missed opportunities of characters caught in their daily greyness like in a cobweb.
With these two authors, the first Récitals were addressing different visions of time, identity and space fragmentations...The other visions of world fragmentation followed. Nuno Judice's wanderings of the soul and body, Antonio Ramos Rosa's incantatory force, David Mourão-Ferreira's erotism where reality and dream get mixed up, unclassifiable Camilo Pessanha's deep thoughts and rhythms.
No performance was identical, the confrontation between the authors' universes created a multi-combinations puzzle to which the combinations of music, singing and sometimes language mix responded;
Sophia de Mello Breyner
Were represented a selection of poems extracted from various collections : Méditerranée, Navigations, Malgré les ruines et la mort translated by Joaquim Vital, published by Editions de la Différence; La nudité de la vie translated by Michel Chandeigne published by Editions de l'Escampette and short stories Le Silence, Vila Arcos in the collection Histoires de la mer et de la terre; L'homme, le Voyage in the collection Contes exemplaires, translated by Alice Caffarel and Claire Cayron published by Editions de la Difference. Maria Judite de Carvalho
Were represented La vie et le rêve, A contre-temps, La mère, Mademoiselle Arminda from Anica au temps jadis translated by Simone Biberfeld, published by Editions de la Difference and selected chronics extracted from the collection La fenêtre en trompe-l'oeil translated by Simone Biberfeld, published by Editions de la Difference. Nuno Judice
Was represented a selection of poems from the collection Un chant dans l'épaisseur du temps followed by Méditation sur les ruines translated by Michel Chandeigne, published by Gallimard and from the collection Degrés du regard translated by Michel Chandeigne published by Editions de l'Escampette. Camilo Pessanha
Was represented a selection of poems from the collection Clepsydre translated by Ariane Witkowski and Michel Chandeigne, published by the Editions Orphée La Difference. Antonio Ramos Rosa
Was represented a selection of poems from the collection Le cycle du cheval translated by Michel Chandeigne, published by Editions Unes David Mourão-Ferreira
Were represented a selection of poems from the collection Vingt et un poètes translated by V.Picon published by Editions de l'Escampette, previously unpublished poems translated by Michelle Giudicelli and extracts from Now we found each other again
Direction Anne Petit. With : Christophe Allwright, Bevinda (singer), Talou Calvet, Lionel Gossart, Ramon de Herrera (guitar), Emmanuelle Meyssignac, Asayo Otsuka (opera singer), Anne Petit, Benoît Schwartz, Alexandre Sorel (piano) and the exceptional participation of Gisèle Casadesus, Lucien Pascal and Hugues Quester. Music by Bevinda, Ramon de Herrera, Dominique Probst, lighting Stéphanie Leclerq and Anne Petit.
T.A.T. production, with the support of the Ministry of Culture: DRAC Ile de France, Centre National du Livre, the Ministry of Culture (Lisbon): Book Institute, the Gulbenkian Foundation, the Camoes Institute(Lisbon and Paris), the Institute Support for Portuguese Communities (Lisbon) and C.C.P.F.
First produced on November 3, 1993 Théâtre du Port de la Lune, Centre Dramatique National Bordeaux Aquitaine à Bordeaux, in the presence of Sophia de Mello Breyner
